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Sunday, October 19, 2014

SUNDAY REVIEW / THE DEFENDERS / FICTION BY PHILIP K. DICK

Editor’s Note: The short story was first published
in the January 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.It is in the public domain and was translated
online by Project Gutenberg, www. http://www.gutenberg.org/

TAYLOR
sat back in his chair reading the morning newspaper. The warm kitchen and the
smell of coffee blended with the comfort of not having to go to work. This was
his Rest Period, the first for a long time, and he was glad of it. He folded
the second section back, sighing with contentment.

"What is it?"
Mary said, from the stove.

"They pasted Moscow
again last night." Taylor nodded his head in approval. "Gave it a
real pounding. One of those R-H bombs. It's about time."

***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist,
short story writer, essayist and philosopher whose published work is almost
entirely accepted as being in the science fiction genre.

***

He nodded again, feeling the full comfort of the
kitchen, the presence of his plump, attractive wife, the breakfast dishes and
coffee. This was relaxation. And the war news was good, good and satisfying. He
could feel a justifiable glow at the news, a sense of pride and personal
accomplishment. After all, he was an integral part of the war program, not just
another factory worker lugging a cart of scrap, but a technician, one of those
who designed and planned the nerve-trunk of the war.

"It says they have
the new subs almost perfected. Wait until they get those going." He
smacked his lips with anticipation. "When they start shelling from
underwater, the Soviets are sure going to be surprised."

"They're doing a
wonderful job," Mary agreed vaguely. "Do you know what we saw today?
Our team is getting a leady to show to the school children. I saw the leady,
but only for a moment. It's good for the children to see what their
contributions are going for, don't you think?"

She looked around at him.

"A leady,"
Taylor murmured. He put the newspaper slowly down. "Well, make sure it's
decontaminated properly. We don't want to take any chances."

"Oh, they always
bathe them when they're brought down from the surface," Mary said.
"They wouldn't think of letting them down without the bath. Would
they?" She hesitated, thinking back. "Don, you know, it makes me
remember—"

He nodded. "I
know."

He knew what she was thinking. Once in the very
first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface,
they had seen a hospital train discharging the wounded, people who had been
showered with sleet. He remembered the way they had looked, the expression on
their faces, or as much of their faces as was left. It had not been a pleasant
sight.

There had been a lot of
that at first, in the early days before the transfer to undersurface was
complete. There had been a lot, and it hadn't been very difficult to come
across it.

Taylor looked up at his
wife. She was thinking too much about it, the last few months. They all were.

"Forget it," he
said. "It's all in the past. There isn't anybody up there now but the
leadys, and they don't mind."

"But just the same,
I hope they're careful when they let one of them down here. If one were still
hot—"

He laughed, pushing
himself away from the table. "Forget it. This is a wonderful moment; I'll
be home for the next two shifts. Nothing to do but sit around and take things
easy. Maybe we can take in a show. Okay?"

"A show? Do we have
to? I don't like to look at all the destruction, the ruins. Sometimes I see
some place I remember, like San Francisco. They showed a shot of San Francisco,
the bridge broken and fallen in the water, and I got upset. I don't like to
watch."

"But it's so
awful!" Her face was set and strained. "Please, no, Don."

Don Taylor picked up his
newspaper sullenly. "All right, but there isn't a hell of a lot else to
do. And don't forget, their cities are getting it even worse."

She nodded. Taylor turned
the rough, thin sheets of newspaper. His good mood had soured on him. Why did
she have to fret all the time? They were pretty well off, as things went. You
couldn't expect to have everything perfect, living undersurface, with an
artificial sun and artificial food. Naturally it was a strain, not seeing the
sky or being able to go any place or see anything other than metal walls, great
roaring factories, the plant-yards, barracks. But it was better than being on
surface. And some day it would end and they could return. Nobody wanted to live
this way, but it was necessary.

He turned the page
angrily and the poor paper ripped. Damn it, the paper was getting worse quality
all the time, bad print, yellow tint—

Well, they needed
everything for the war program. He ought to know that. Wasn't he one of the
planners?

He excused himself and
went into the other room. The bed was still unmade. They had better get it in
shape before the seventh hour inspection. There was a one unit fine—

The vidphone rang. He
halted. Who would it be? He went over and clicked it on.

"Taylor?" the
face said, forming into place. It was an old face, gray and grim. "This is
Moss. I'm sorry to bother you during Rest Period, but this thing has come
up." He rattled papers. "I want you to hurry over here."

Taylor stiffened.
"What is it? There's no chance it could wait?" The calm gray eyes
were studying him, expressionless, unjudging. "If you want me to come down
to the lab," Taylor grumbled, "I suppose I can. I'll get my
uniform—"

"No. Come as you
are. And not to the lab. Meet me at second stage as soon as possible. It'll
take you about a half hour, using the fast car up. I'll see you there."

The picture broke and
Moss disappeared.

"WHAT was it?"
Mary said, at the door.

"Moss. He wants me
for something."

"I knew this would
happen."

"Well, you didn't want
to do anything, anyhow. What does it matter?" His voice was bitter.
"It's all the same, every day. I'll bring you back something. I'm going up
to second stage. Maybe I'll be close enough to the surface to—"

"Don't! Don't bring
me anything! Not from the surface!"

"All right, I won't.
But of all the irrational nonsense—"

She watched him put on
his boots without answering.

Moss nodded and Taylor
fell in step with him, as the older man strode along. A series of loads were
going up to the surface, blind cars clanking like ore-trucks up the ramp,
disappearing through the stage trap above them. Taylor watched the cars, heavy
with tubular machinery of some sort, weapons new to him. Workers were
everywhere, in the dark gray uniforms of the labor corps, loading, lifting,
shouting back and forth. The stage was deafening with noise.

"We'll go up a
way," Moss said, "where we can talk. This is no place to give you
details."

They took an escalator
up. The commercial lift fell behind them, and with it most of the crashing and
booming. Soon they emerged on an observation platform, suspended on the side of
the Tube, the vast tunnel leading to the surface, not more than half a mile
above them now.

"My God!"
Taylor said, looking down the Tube involuntarily. "It's a long way down."

Moss laughed. "Don't
look."

They opened a door and
entered an office. Behind the desk, an officer was sitting, an officer of
Internal Security. He looked up.

"I'll be right with
you, Moss." He gazed at Taylor studying him. "You're a little ahead
of time."

"This is Commander
Franks," Moss said to Taylor. "He was the first to make the
discovery. I was notified last night." He tapped a parcel he carried.
"I was let in because of this."

Franks frowned at him and stood up. "We're
going up to first stage. We can discuss it there."

"First stage?"
Taylor repeated nervously. The three of them went down a side passage to a
small lift. "I've never been up there. Is it all right? It's not
radioactive, is it?"

"You're like
everyone else," Franks said. "Old women afraid of burglars. No
radiation leaks down to first stage. There's lead and rock, and what comes down
the Tube is bathed."

"What's the nature
of the problem?" Taylor asked. "I'd like to know something about
it."

"In a moment."

They entered the lift and
ascended. When they stepped out, they were in a hall of soldiers, weapons and
uniforms everywhere. Taylor blinked in surprise. So this was first stage, the
closest undersurface level to the top! After this stage there was only rock,
lead and rock, and the great tubes leading up like the burrows of earthworms.
Lead and rock, and above that, where the tubes opened, the great expanse that
no living being had seen for eight years, the vast, endless ruin that had once
been Man's home, the place where he had lived, eight years ago.

Now the surface was a
lethal desert of slag and rolling clouds. Endless clouds drifted back and
forth, blotting out the red Sun. Occasionally something metallic stirred,
moving through the remains of a city, threading its way across the tortured
terrain of the countryside. A leady, a surface robot, immune to radiation,
constructed with feverish haste in the last months before the cold war became
literally hot.

Leadys, crawling along
the ground, moving over the oceans or through the skies in slender, blackened
craft, creatures that could exist where no life could remain, metal and plastic
figures that waged a war Man had conceived, but which he could not fight
himself. Human beings had invented war, invented and manufactured the weapons,
even invented the players, the fighters, the actors of the war. But they
themselves could not venture forth, could not wage it themselves. In all the
world—in Russia, in Europe, America, Africa—no living human being remained.
They were under the surface, in the deep shelters that had been carefully
planned and built, even as the first bombs began to fall.

It was a brilliant idea
and the only idea that could have worked. Up above, on the ruined, blasted
surface of what had once been a living planet, the leady crawled and scurried,
and fought Man's war. And undersurface, in the depths of the planet, human
beings toiled endlessly to produce the weapons to continue the fight, month by
month, year by year.

"First stage,"
Taylor said. A strange ache went through him. "Almost to the
surface."

"But not
quite," Moss said.

Franks led them through
the soldiers, over to one side, near the lip of the Tube.

"In a few minutes, a
lift will bring something down to us from the surface," he explained.
"You see, Taylor, every once in a while Security examines and interrogates
a surface leady, one that has been above for a time, to find out certain
things. A vidcall is sent up and contact is made with a field headquarters. We
need this direct interview; we can't depend on vidscreen contact alone. The
leadys are doing a good job, but we want to make certain that everything is
going the way we want it."

Franks faced Taylor and
Moss and continued: "The lift will bring down a leady from the surface,
one of the A-class leadys. There's an examination chamber in the next room,
with a lead wall in the center, so the interviewing officers won't be exposed
to radiation. We find this easier than bathing the leady. It is going right
back up; it has a job to get back to.

"Two days ago, an
A-class leady was brought down and interrogated. I conducted the session
myself. We were interested in a new weapon the Soviets have been using, an
automatic mine that pursues anything that moves. Military had sent instructions
up that the mine be observed and reported in detail.

"This A-class leady
was brought down with information. We learned a few facts from it, obtained the
usual roll of film and reports, and then sent it back up. It was going out of
the chamber, back to the lift, when a curious thing happened. At the time, I
thought—"

Franks broke off. A red
light was flashing.

"That down lift is
coming." He nodded to some soldiers. "Let's enter the chamber. The
leady will be along in a moment."

"An A-class
leady," Taylor said. "I've seen them on the showscreens, making their
reports."

"It's quite an
experience," Moss said. "They're almost human."

They entered the chamber and seated themselves
behind the lead wall. After a time, a signal was flashed, and Franks made a
motion with his hands.

The door beyond the wall
opened. Taylor peered through his view slot. He saw something advancing slowly,
a slender metallic figure moving on a tread, its arm grips at rest by its
sides. The figure halted and scanned the lead wall. It stood, waiting.

"We are interested
in learning something," Franks said. "Before I question you, do you
have anything to report on surface conditions?"

"No. The war
continues." The leady's voice was automatic and toneless. "We are a
little short of fast pursuit craft, the single-seat type. We could use also
some—"

"That has all been
noted. What I want to ask you is this. Our contact with you has been through
vidscreen only. We must rely on indirect evidence, since none of us goes above.
We can only infer what is going on. We never see anything ourselves. We have to
take it all secondhand. Some top leaders are beginning to think there's too
much room for error."

"Error?" the
leady asked. "In what way? Our reports are checked carefully before
they're sent down. We maintain constant contact with you; everything of value
is reported. Any new weapons which the enemy is seen to employ—"

"I realize
that," Franks grunted behind his peep slot. "But perhaps we should
see it all for ourselves. Is it possible that there might be a large enough
radiation-free area for a human party to ascend to the surface? If a few of us
were to come up in lead-lined suits, would we be able to survive long enough to
observe conditions and watch things?"

The machine hesitated
before answering. "I doubt it. You can check air samples, of course, and
decide for yourselves. But in the eight years since you left, things have
continually worsened. You cannot have any real idea of conditions up there. It
has become difficult for any moving object to survive for long. There are many
kinds of projectiles sensitive to movement. The new mine not only reacts to
motion, but continues to pursue the object indefinitely, until it finally
reaches it. And the radiation is everywhere."

"I see." Franks
turned to Moss, his eyes narrowed oddly. "Well, that was what I wanted to
know. You may go."

The machine moved back
toward its exit. It paused. "Each month the amount of lethal particles in
the atmosphere increases. The tempo of the war is gradually—"

"I understand."
Franks rose. He held out his hand and Moss passed him the package. "One
thing before you leave. I want you to examine a new type of metal shield
material. I'll pass you a sample with the tong."

Franks put the package in
the toothed grip and revolved the tong so that he held the other end. The
package swung down to the leady, which took it. They watched it unwrap the
package and take the metal plate in its hands. The leady turned the metal over
and over.

Suddenly it became rigid.

"All right,"
Franks said.

He put his shoulder
against the wall and a section slid aside. Taylor gasped—Franks and Moss were
hurrying up to the leady!

"Good God!"
Taylor said. "But it's radioactive!"

The leady stood unmoving,
still holding the metal. Soldiers appeared in the chamber. They surrounded the
leady and ran a counter across it carefully.

"Okay, sir,"
one of them said to Franks. "It's as cold as a long winter evening."

"Good. I was sure,
but I didn't want to take any chances."

"You see," Moss
said to Taylor, "this leady isn't hot at all. Yet it came directly from
the surface, without even being bathed."

"But what does it
mean?" Taylor asked blankly.

"It may be an
accident," Franks said. "There's always the possibility that a given
object might escape being exposed above. But this is the second time it's
happened that we know of. There may be others."

"The second
time?"

"The previous
interview was when we noticed it. The leady was not hot. It was cold, too, like
this one."

Moss took back the metal
plate from the leady's hands. He pressed the surface carefully and returned it
to the stiff, unprotesting fingers.

"We shorted it out
with this, so we could get close enough for a thorough check. It'll come back
on in a second now. We had better get behind the wall again."

They walked back and the
lead wall swung closed behind them. The soldiers left the chamber.

"Two periods from
now," Franks said softly, "an initial investigating party will be
ready to go surface-side. We're going up the Tube in suits, up to the top—the
first human party to leave undersurface in eight years."

"It may mean
nothing," Moss said, "but I doubt it. Something's going on, something
strange. The leady told us no life could exist above without being roasted. The
story doesn't fit."

Taylor nodded. He stared
through the peep slot at the immobile metal figure. Already the leady was
beginning to stir. It was bent in several places, dented and twisted, and its
finish was blackened and charred. It was a leady that had been up there a long
time; it had seen war and destruction, ruin so vast that no human being could
imagine the extent. It had crawled and slunk in a world of radiation and death,
a world where no life could exist.

And Taylor had touched
it!

"You're going with
us," Franks said suddenly. "I want you along. I think the three of us
will go."

Mary faced him with a sick and frightened
expression. "I know it. You're going to the surface. Aren't you?"

She followed him into the
kitchen. Taylor sat down, looking away from her.

"It's a classified
project," he evaded. "I can't tell you anything about it."

"You don't have to
tell me. I know. I knew it the moment you came in. There was something on your
face, something I haven't seen there for a long, long time. It was an old
look."

She came toward him.
"But how can they send you to the surface?" She took his face in her
shaking hands, making him look at her. There was a strange hunger in her eyes.
"Nobody can live up there. Look, look at this!"

She grabbed up a
newspaper and held it in front of him.

"Look at this
photograph. America, Europe, Asia, Africa—nothing but ruins. We've seen it
every day on the showscreens. All destroyed, poisoned. And they're sending you
up. Why? No living thing can get by up there, not even a weed, or grass.
They've wrecked the surface, haven't they? Haven't they?"

Taylor stood up.
"It's an order. I know nothing about it. I was told to report to join a
scout party. That's all I know."

He stood for a long time,
staring ahead. Slowly, he reached for the newspaper and held it up to the
light.

"It looks
real," he murmured. "Ruins, deadness, slag. It's convincing. All the
reports, photographs, films, even air samples. Yet we haven't seen it for
ourselves, not after the first months ..."

"What are you
talking about?"

"Nothing." He put
the paper down. "I'm leaving early after the next Sleep Period. Let's turn
in."

Mary turned away, her
face hard and harsh. "Do what you want. We might just as well all go up
and get killed at once, instead of dying slowly down here, like vermin in the ground."

He had not realized how
resentful she was. Were they all like that? How about the workers toiling in
the factories, day and night, endlessly? The pale, stooped men and women,
plodding back and forth to work, blinking in the colorless light, eating
synthetics—

"You shouldn't be so
bitter," he said.

Mary smiled a little.
"I'm bitter because I know you'll never come back." She turned away.
"I'll never see you again, once you go up there."

He was shocked.
"What? How can you say a thing like that?"

She did not answer.

He awakened with the public newscaster screeching
in his ears, shouting outside the building.

Taylor blinked, rubbing
his eyes. He jumped out of bed and hurried to the vidphone. A moment later he
was put through to Moss.

"Listen," he
said. "What about this new attack? Is the project off?" He could see
Moss's desk, covered with reports and papers.

"No," Moss
said. "We're going right ahead. Get over here at once."

"But—"

"Don't argue with
me." Moss held up a handful of surface bulletins, crumpling them savagely.
"This is a fake. Come on!" He broke off.

Taylor dressed furiously,
his mind in a daze.

Half an hour later, he
leaped from a fast car and hurried up the stairs into the Synthetics Building.
The corridors were full of men and women rushing in every direction. He entered
Moss's office.

"There you
are," Moss said, getting up immediately. "Franks is waiting for us at
the outgoing station."

They went in a Security
Car, the siren screaming. Workers scattered out of their way.

"What about the
attack?" Taylor asked.

Moss braced his
shoulders. "We're certain that we've forced their hand. We've brought the
issue to a head."

They pulled up at the
station link of the Tube and leaped out. A moment later they were moving up at
high speed toward the first stage.

They emerged into a
bewildering scene of activity. Soldiers were fastening on lead suits, talking
excitedly to each other, shouting back and forth. Guns were being given out,
instructions passed.

Taylor studied one of the soldiers. He was armed
with the dreaded Bender pistol, the new snub-nosed hand weapon that was just
beginning to come from the assembly line. Some of the soldiers looked a little
frightened.

"I hope we're not
making a mistake," Moss said, noticing his gaze.

Franks came toward them.
"Here's the program. The three of us are going up first, alone. The
soldiers will follow in fifteen minutes."

"What are we going
to tell the leadys?" Taylor worriedly asked. "We'll have to tell them
something."

"We want to observe
the new Soviet attack." Franks smiled ironically. "Since it seems to
be so serious, we should be there in person to witness it."

"And then
what?" Taylor said.

"That'll be up to
them. Let's go."

In a small car, they went
swiftly up the Tube, carried by anti-grav beams from below. Taylor glanced down
from time to time. It was a long way back, and getting longer each moment. He
sweated nervously inside his suit, gripping his Bender pistol with inexpert
fingers.

Why had they chosen him?
Chance, pure chance. Moss had asked him to come along as a Department member.
Then Franks had picked him out on the spur of the moment. And now they were
rushing toward the surface, faster and faster.

A deep fear, instilled in
him for eight years, throbbed in his mind. Radiation, certain death, a world
blasted and lethal—

Up and up the car went.
Taylor gripped the sides and closed his eyes. Each moment they were closer, the
first living creatures to go above the first stage, up the Tube past the lead
and rock, up to the surface. The phobic horror shook him in waves. It was
death; they all knew that. Hadn't they seen it in the films a thousand times?
The cities, the sleet coming down, the rolling clouds—

"It won't be much
longer," Franks said. "We're almost there. The surface tower is not
expecting us. I gave orders that no signal was to be sent."

The car shot up, rushing
furiously. Taylor's head spun; he hung on, his eyes shut. Up and up....

The car stopped. He
opened his eyes.

They were in a vast room,
fluorescent-lit, a cavern filled with equipment and machinery, endless mounds
of material piled in row after row. Among the stacks, leadys were working
silently, pushing trucks and handcarts.

"Leadys," Moss
said. His face was pale. "Then we're really on the surface."

The leadys were going
back and forth with equipment moving the vast stores of guns and spare parts,
ammunition and supplies that had been brought to the surface. And this was the
receiving station for only one Tube; there were many others, scattered
throughout the continent.

Taylor looked nervously
around him. They were really there, above ground, on the surface. This was
where the war was.

"Come on,"
Franks said. "A B-class guard is coming our way."

They stepped out of the
car. A leady was approaching them rapidly. It coasted up in front of them and
stopped, scanning them with its hand-weapon raised.

"This is
Security," Franks said. "Have an A-class sent to me at once."

The leady hesitated.
Other B-class guards were coming, scooting across the floor, alert and alarmed.
Moss peered around.

"Obey!" Franks said
in a loud, commanding voice. "You've been ordered!"

The leady moved
uncertainly away from them. At the end of the building, a door slid back. Two
A-class leadys appeared, coming slowly toward them. Each had a green stripe
across its front.

The two leadys approached
warily. Without speaking, they stopped close by the men, looking them up and
down.

"I'm Franks of
Security. We came from undersurface in order to—"

"This in
incredible," one of the leadys interrupted him coldly. "You know you
can't live up here. The whole surface is lethal to you. You can't possibly
remain on the surface."

"These suits will
protect us," Franks said. "In any case, it's not your responsibility.
What I want is an immediate Council meeting so I can acquaint myself with
conditions, with the situation here. Can that be arranged?"

"You human beings
can't survive up here. And the new Soviet attack is directed at this area. It
is in considerable danger."

"We know that.
Please assemble the Council." Franks looked around him at the vast room,
lit by recessed lamps in the ceiling. An uncertain quality came into his voice.
"Is it night or day right now?"

"Night," one of
the A-class leadys said, after a pause. "Dawn is coming in about two
hours."

Franks nodded.
"We'll remain at least two hours, then. As a concession to our
sentimentality, would you please show us some place where we can observe the
Sun as it comes up? We would appreciate it."

A stir went through the
leadys.

"It is an unpleasant
sight," one of the leadys said. "You've seen the photographs; you
know what you'll witness. Clouds of drifting particles blot out the light, slag
heaps are everywhere, the whole land is destroyed. For you it will be a
staggering sight, much worse than pictures and film can convey."

"However it may be,
we'll stay long enough to see it. Will you give the order to the Council?"

"Come this way."
Reluctantly, the two leadys coasted toward the wall of the warehouse. The three
men trudged after them, their heavy shoes ringing against the concrete. At the
wall, the two leadys paused.

"This is the
entrance to the Council Chamber. There are windows in the Chamber Room, but it
is still dark outside, of course. You'll see nothing right now, but in two hours—"

"Open the
door," Franks said.

The door slid back. They
went slowly inside. The room was small, a neat room with a round table in the
center, chairs ringing it. The three of them sat down silently, and the two
leadys followed after them, taking their places.

"The other Council
Members are on their way. They have already been notified and are coming as
quickly as they can. Again I urge you to go back down." The leady surveyed
the three human beings. "There is no way you can meet the conditions up
here. Even we survive with some trouble, ourselves. How can you expect to do
it?"

The leader approached
Franks.

"This astonishes and
perplexes us," it said. "Of course we must do what you tell us, but
allow me to point out that if you remain here—"

"We know,"
Franks said impatiently. "However, we intend to remain, at least until
sunrise."

"If you
insist."

There was silence. The
leadys seemed to be conferring with each other, although the three men heard no
sound.

"For your own
good," the leader said at last, "you must go back down. We have
discussed this, and it seems to us that you are doing the wrong thing for your
own good."

"That is precisely
why you must go back. This room is radioactive; all surface areas are. We
calculate that your suits will not protect you for over fifty more minutes.
Therefore—"

The leadys moved abruptly
toward the men, wheeling in a circle, forming a solid row. The men stood up,
Taylor reaching awkwardly for his weapon, his fingers numb and stupid. The men
stood facing the silent metal figures.

"We must
insist," the leader said, its voice without emotion. "We must take
you back to the Tube and send you down on the next car. I am sorry, but it is
necessary."

"What'll we
do?" Moss said nervously to Franks. He touched his gun. "Shall we
blast them?"

Franks shook his head.
"All right," he said to the leader. "We'll go back."

He moved toward the door, motioning Taylor and Moss
to follow him. They looked at him in surprise, but they came with him. The
leadys followed them out into the great warehouse. Slowly they moved toward the
Tube entrance, none of them speaking.

At the lip, Franks
turned. "We are going back because we have no choice. There are three of
us and about a dozen of you. However, if—"

"Here comes the
car," Taylor said.

There was a grating sound
from the Tube. D-class leadys moved toward the edge to receive it.

"I am sorry,"
the leader said, "but it is for your protection. We are watching over you,
literally. You must stay below and let us conduct the war. In a sense, it has
come to be our war. We must fight it as we see fit."

The car rose to the
surface.

Twelve soldiers, armed
with Bender pistols, stepped from it and surrounded the three men.

Moss breathed a sigh of
relief. "Well, this does change things. It came off just right."

The leader moved back,
away from the soldiers. It studied them intently, glancing from one to the
next, apparently trying to make up its mind. At last it made a sign to the
other leadys. They coasted aside and a corridor was opened up toward the
warehouse.

"Even now," the
leader said, "we could send you back by force. But it is evident that this
is not really an observation party at all. These soldiers show that you have
much more in mind; this was all carefully prepared."

"Very carefully,"
Franks said.

They closed in.

"How much more, we
can only guess. I must admit that we were taken unprepared. We failed utterly
to meet the situation. Now force would be absurd, because neither side can
afford to injure the other; we, because of the restrictions placed on us
regarding human life, you because the war demands—"

The soldiers fired, quick
and in fright. Moss dropped to one knee, firing up. The leader dissolved in a
cloud of particles. On all sides D- and B-class leadys were rushing up, some
with weapons, some with metal slats. The room was in confusion. Off in the
distance a siren was screaming. Franks and Taylor were cut off from the others,
separated from the soldiers by a wall of metal bodies.

"They can't fire
back," Franks said calmly. "This is another bluff. They've tried to
bluff us all the way." He fired into the face of a leady. The leady
dissolved. "They can only try to frighten us. Remember that."

They went on firing and
leady after leady vanished. The room reeked with the smell of burning metal,
the stink of fused plastic and steel. Taylor had been knocked down. He was
struggling to find his gun, reaching wildly among metal legs, groping
frantically to find it. His fingers strained, a handle swam in front of him.
Suddenly something came down on his arm, a metal foot. He cried out.

Then it was over. The
leadys were moving away, gathering together off to one side. Only four of the
Surface Council remained. The others were radioactive particles in the air.
D-class leadys were already restoring order, gathering up partly destroyed
metal figures and bits and removing them.

Franks breathed a
shuddering sigh.

"All right," he
said. "You can take us back to the windows. It won't be long now."

The leadys separated, and
the human group, Moss and Franks and Taylor and the soldiers, walked slowly
across the room, toward the door. They entered the Council Chamber. Already a
faint touch of gray mitigated the blackness of the windows.

"Take us
outside," Franks said impatiently. "We'll see it directly, not in
here."

A door slid open. A chill
blast of cold morning air rushed in, chilling them even through their lead
suits. The men glanced at each other uneasily.

"Come on,"
Franks said. "Outside."

He walked out through the
door, the others following him.

They were on a hill,
overlooking the vast bowl of a valley. Dimly, against the graying sky, the
outline of mountains were forming, becoming tangible.

"It'll be bright
enough to see in a few minutes," Moss said. He shuddered as a chilling
wind caught him and moved around him. "It's worth it, really worth it, to
see this again after eight years. Even if it's the last thing we see—"

"Watch," Franks
snapped.

They obeyed, silent and
subdued. The sky was clearing, brightening each moment. Some place far off,
echoing across the valley, a rooster crowed.

"A chicken!"
Taylor murmured. "Did you hear?"

Behind them, the leadys
had come out and were standing silently, watching, too. The gray sky turned to
white and the hills appeared more clearly. Light spread across the valley
floor, moving toward them.

"God in
heaven!" Franks exclaimed.

Trees, trees and forests.
A valley of plants and trees, with a few roads winding among them. Farmhouses.
A windmill. A barn, far down below them.

"Look!" Moss
whispered.

Color came into the sky.
The Sun was approaching. Birds began to sing. Not far from where they stood,
the leaves of a tree danced in the wind.

Franks turned to the row
of leadys behind them.

"Eight years. We
were tricked. There was no war. As soon as we left the surface—"

"Yes," an
A-class leady admitted. "As soon as you left, the war ceased. You're
right, it was a hoax. You worked hard undersurface, sending up guns and
weapons, and we destroyed them as fast as they came up."

"You created us,"
the leady said, "to pursue the war for you, while you human beings went
below the ground in order to survive. But before we could continue the war, it
was necessary to analyze it to determine what its purpose was. We did this, and
we found that it had no purpose, except, perhaps, in terms of human needs. Even
this was questionable.

"We investigated
further. We found that human cultures pass through phases, each culture in its
own time. As the culture ages and begins to lose its objectives, conflict
arises within it between those who wish to cast it off and set up a new
culture-pattern, and those who wish to retain the old with as little change as
possible.

"At this point, a
great danger appears. The conflict within threatens to engulf the society in
self-war, group against group. The vital traditions may be lost—not merely
altered or reformed, but completely destroyed in this period of chaos and
anarchy. We have found many such examples in the history of mankind.

"It is necessary for
this hatred within the culture to be directed outward, toward an external
group, so that the culture itself may survive its crisis. War is the result.
War, to a logical mind, is absurd. But in terms of human needs, it plays a
vital role. And it will continue to until Man has grown up enough so that no
hatred lies within him."

Taylor was listening
intently. "Do you think this time will come?"

"Of course. It has
almost arrived now. This is the last war. Man is almost united into one final
culture—a world culture. At this point he stands continent against continent,
one half of the world against the other half. Only a single step remains, the
jump to a unified culture. Man has climbed slowly upward, tending always toward
unification of his culture. It will not be long—

"But it has not come
yet, and so the war had to go on, to satisfy the last violent surge of hatred
that Man felt. Eight years have passed since the war began. In these eight
years, we have observed and noted important changes going on in the minds of
men. Fatigue and disinterest, we have seen, are gradually taking the place of
hatred and fear. The hatred is being exhausted gradually, over a period of
time. But for the present, the hoax must go on, at least for a while longer.
You are not ready to learn the truth. You would want to continue the war."

"But how did you
manage it?" Moss asked. "All the photographs, the samples, the
damaged equipment—"

"Come over
here." The leady directed them toward a long, low building. "Work
goes on constantly, whole staffs laboring to maintain a coherent and convincing
picture of a global war."

They entered the building.
Leadys were working everywhere, poring over tables and desks.

"Examine this
project here," the A-class leady said. Two leadys were carefully
photographing something, an elaborate model on a table top. "It is a good
example."

The men grouped around,
trying to see. It was a model of a ruined city.

Taylor studied it in silence for a long time. At
last he looked up.

"It's San
Francisco," he said in a low voice. "This is a model of San
Francisco, destroyed. I saw this on the vidscreen, piped down to us. The
bridges were hit—"

"Yes, notice the
bridges." The leady traced the ruined span with his metal finger, a tiny
spider-web, almost invisible. "You have no doubt seen photographs of this
many times, and of the other tables in this building.

"San Francisco
itself is completely intact. We restored it soon after you left, rebuilding the
parts that had been damaged at the start of the war. The work of manufacturing
news goes on all the time in this particular building. We are very careful to
see that each part fits in with all the other parts. Much time and effort are
devoted to it."

Franks touched one of the
tiny model buildings, lying half in ruins. "So this is what you spend your
time doing—making model cities and then blasting them."

"No, we do much more.
We are caretakers, watching over the whole world. The owners have left for a
time, and we must see that the cities are kept clean, that decay is prevented,
that everything is kept oiled and in running condition. The gardens, the
streets, the water mains, everything must be maintained as it was eight years
ago, so that when the owners return, they will not be displeased. We want to be
sure that they will be completely satisfied."

Franks tapped Moss on the
arm.

"Come over
here," he said in a low voice. "I want to talk to you."

He led Moss and Taylor
out of the building, away from the leadys, outside on the hillside. The
soldiers followed them. The Sun was up and the sky was turning blue. The air
smelled sweet and good, the smell of growing things.

Taylor removed his helmet
and took a deep breath.

"I haven't smelled
that smell for a long time," he said.

"Listen,"
Franks said, his voice low and hard. "We must get back down at once.
There's a lot to get started on. All this can be turned to our advantage."

"What do you
mean?" Moss asked.

"It's a certainty
that the Soviets have been tricked, too, the same as us. But we have found out.
That gives us an edge over them."

"I see." Moss
nodded. "We know, but they don't. Their Surface Council has sold out, the
same as ours. It works against them the same way. But if we could—"

"With a hundred
top-level men, we could take over again, restore things as they should be! It
would be easy!"

Moss touched him on the arm. An A-class leady was
coming from the building toward them.

"We've seen
enough," Franks said, raising his voice. "All this is very serious.
It must be reported below and a study made to determine our policy."

The leady said nothing.

Franks waved to the
soldiers. "Let's go." He started toward the warehouse.

Most of the soldiers had
removed their helmets. Some of them had taken their lead suits off, too, and
were relaxing comfortably in their cotton uniforms. They stared around them,
down the hillside at the trees and bushes, the vast expanse of green, the
mountains and the sky.

"Look at the
Sun," one of them murmured.

"It sure is bright
as hell," another said.

"We're going back
down," Franks said. "Fall in by twos and follow us."

Reluctantly, the soldiers
regrouped. The leadys watched without emotion as the men marched slowly back
toward the warehouse. Franks and Moss and Taylor led them across the ground,
glancing alertly at the leadys as they walked.

They entered the
warehouse. D-class leadys were loading material and weapons on surface carts.
Cranes and derricks were working busily everywhere. The work was done with
efficiency, but without hurry or excitement.

The men stopped,
watching. Leadys operating the little carts moved past them, signaling silently
to each other. Guns and parts were being hoisted by magnetic cranes and lowered
gently onto waiting carts.

"Come on,"
Franks said.

He turned toward the lip
of the Tube. A row of D-class leadys was standing in front of it, immobile and
silent. Franks stopped, moving back. He looked around. An A-class leady was
coming toward him.

"Tell them to get
out of the way," Franks said. He touched his gun. "You had better
move them."

Time passed, an endless
moment, without measure. The men stood, nervous and alert, watching the row of
leadys in front of them.

"As you wish,"
the A-class leady said.

It signaled and the
D-class leadys moved into life. They stepped slowly aside.

Moss breathed a sigh of
relief.

"I'm glad that's
over," he said to Franks. "Look at them all. Why don't they try to
stop us? They must know what we're going to do."

Franks laughed.
"Stop us? You saw what happened when they tried to stop us before. They
can't; they're only machines. We built them so they can't lay hands on us, and
they know that."

His voice trailed off.

The men stared at the
Tube entrance. Around them the leadys watched, silent and impassive, their
metal faces expressionless.

For a long time the men
stood without moving. At last Taylor turned away.

"Good God," he
said. He was numb, without feeling of any kind.

The Tube was gone. It was
sealed shut, fused over. Only a dull surface of cooling metal greeted them.

The Tube had been closed.

Franks turned, his face
pale and vacant.

The A-class leady
shifted. "As you can see, the Tube has been shut. We were prepared for
this. As soon as all of you were on the surface, the order was given. If you
had gone back when we asked you, you would now be safely down below. We had to
work quickly because it was such an immense operation."

"But why?" Moss
demanded angrily.

"Because it is
unthinkable that you should be allowed to resume the war. With all the Tubes
sealed, it will be many months before forces from below can reach the surface,
let alone organize a military program. By that time the cycle will have entered
its last stages. You will not be so perturbed to find your world intact.

"We had hoped that
you would be undersurface when the sealing occurred. Your presence here is a
nuisance. When the Soviets broke through, we were able to accomplish their
sealing without—"

"The Soviets? They
broke through?"

"Several months ago,
they came up unexpectedly to see why the war had not been won. We were forced
to act with speed. At this moment they are desperately attempting to cut new
Tubes to the surface, to resume the war. We have, however, been able to seal
each new one as it appears."

"How did you manage to
seal the Tube so quickly?" Franks asked the leady. "We've been up
here only two hours."

"Bombs are placed
just above the first stage of each Tube for such emergencies. They are heat
bombs. They fuse lead and rock."

Gripping the handle of
his gun, Franks turned to Moss and Taylor.

"What do you say? We
can't go back, but we can do a lot of damage, the fifteen of us. We have Bender
guns. How about it?"

He looked around. The
soldiers had wandered away again, back toward the exit of the building. They
were standing outside, looking at the valley and the sky. A few of them were
carefully climbing down the slope.

"Would you care to
turn over your suits and guns?" the A-class leady asked politely.
"The suits are uncomfortable and you'll have no need for weapons. The
Russians have given up theirs, as you can see."

Fingers tensed on
triggers. Four men in Russian uniforms were coming toward them from an aircraft
that they suddenly realized had landed silently some distance away.

"Let them have
it!" Franks shouted.

"They are
unarmed," said the leady. "We brought them here so you could begin
peace talks."

"We have no
authority to speak for our country," Moss said stiffly.

"We do not mean
diplomatic discussions," the leady explained. "There will be no more.
The working out of daily problems of existence will teach you how to get along
in the same world. It will not be easy, but it will be done."

The Russians halted and
they faced each other with raw hostility.

"I am Colonel
Borodoy and I regret giving up our guns," the senior Russian said.
"You could have been the first Americans to be killed in almost eight
years."

"Or the first
Americans to kill," Franks corrected.

"No one would know of it
except yourselves," the leady pointed out. "It would be useless
heroism. Your real concern should be surviving on the surface. We have no food
for you, you know."

Taylor put his gun in its
holster. "They've done a neat job of neutralizing us, damn them. I propose
we move into a city, start raising crops with the help of some leadys, and
generally make ourselves comfortable." Drawing his lips tight over his
teeth, he glared at the A-class leady. "Until our families can come up
from undersurface, it's going to be pretty lonesome, but we'll have to
manage."

"If I may make a
suggestion," said another Russian uneasily. "We tried living in a
city. It is too empty. It is also too hard to maintain for so few people. We
finally settled in the most modern village we could find."

"Here in this
country," a third Russian blurted. "We have much to learn from
you."

The Americans abruptly
found themselves laughing.

"You probably have a
thing or two to teach us yourselves," said Taylor generously, "though
I can't imagine what."

The Russian colonel
grinned. "Would you join us in our village? It would make our work easier
and give us company."

"Your village?"
snapped Franks. "It's American, isn't it? It's ours!"

The leady stepped between
them. "When our plans are completed, the term will be interchangeable.
'Ours' will eventually mean mankind's." It pointed at the aircraft, which
was warming up. "The ship is waiting. Will you join each other in making a
new home?"

The Russians waited while
the Americans made up their minds.

"I see what the
leadys mean about diplomacy becoming outmoded," Franks said at last.
"People who work together don't need diplomats. They solve their problems
on the operational level instead of at a conference table."

The leady led them toward
the ship. "It is the goal of history, unifying the world. From family to
tribe to city-state to nation to hemisphere, the direction has been toward
unification. Now the hemispheres will be joined and—"

Taylor stopped listening
and glanced back at the location of the Tube. Mary was undersurface there. He
hated to leave her, even though he couldn't see her again until the Tube was
unsealed. But then he shrugged and followed the others.

If this tiny amalgam of
former enemies was a good example, it wouldn't be too long before he and Mary
and the rest of humanity would be living on the surface like rational human
beings instead of blindly hating moles.

"It has taken
thousands of generations to achieve," the A-class leady concluded.
"Hundreds of centuries of bloodshed and destruction. But each war was a
step toward uniting mankind. And now the end is in sight: a world without war. But
even that is only the beginning of a new stage of history."

"The conquest of
space," breathed Colonel Borodoy.

"The meaning of
life," Moss added.

"Eliminating hunger
and poverty," said Taylor.

The leady opened the door
of the ship. "All that and more. How much more? We cannot foresee it any
more than the first men who formed a tribe could foresee this day. But it will
be unimaginably great."